The End Game
by MannieT
Summary: With a spell that got her back to 1864, Elena thought her wish had come true. Damon's baby. But dopplegångers exist for a reason. A deadly assigned fate.Upsetting the balance means only one thing: nothing will be how they expect it to be. The End Game,at last,will be a mortal one? SEQUEL to : Hopes in the Darkness, Endleslly Bound to You. M for a Reason.


_**Hello, world!**_

_**From "Endlessly Bound To You", to "Hopes In The Darkness" .. We got to "The End Game" .**_

_**Nostalgia is a bitch,if I may add.**_

_**That's what you'll realize once read the chapter. Brought back many good memories and stuff from season 1. **_

_**REVIEW. The story depends on you!**_

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_**Previously:**_

_**Elena left behind the hell that had been those two months of Stefan's disappearance, spoilt with an issue that literally consumed her. **_

_**Damon, being the stubborn, reckless man, walked with her throughout the internal struggle against the demon that threatened her life, anorexia. **_

_**Then the awakening.**_

_**When she finally realized her world still existed because he was her everything. And he was real, full of love to give. **_

_**And he'd kept her to pieces, when something inside of her was willing to burn her flesh to ashes. **_

_**The only thing that her human life required, to be completely lived, was his baby.**_

_**She wanted to love Damon in every single way. Being bound to him forever, their love being the only hope in the darkness that practically was concrete in that wicked world. **_

_**With a spell, Elena gets to go back to the 1864's Mystic Falls and meets human Damon.**_

_**After one night of love, their wish come true.**_

_**But now, once again in 2012, troubles in heaven don't seem to vanish .**_

_**Is Elena really pregnant? Or are the doppelg**__**å**__**ngers destined to face an eternity of misery and pain, once escaped their assigned fate?**_

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_**Doppelg**__**å**__**nger**_

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_November,21 2012_

_Dear Mom and Dad, _

_I know I should be writing these things to my journal, instead. This is how I always start, saying hello to my diary._

_But I so miss you, it's been two years now._

_And even though so many things have happened to me, I still feel I'm your baby girl. I still feel, sometimes, that things are the same way we left off that damned night of that useless party I went to._

_I wish I could have had you here, to teach me how to be at least a tiny bit of the inspiring and amazing parents you've been to me and Jeremy._

_The thing is : I'm _afraid_. _

_I want this baby. So badly. But mom, I'd want you here to teach me the unbeknown of the impending world I'm soon going to face._

_And dad, you could have been the greatest grandpa ever. _

_I just miss you so much._

.

Elena blocked the pen from writing any more in the blank pages of her diary, which she felt she'd utterly neglected lately – her life being too hectic- .

The girl closed her eyes for some instants, inhaling the deep yet bittersweet fragrance of the mixture of different kind of flowers laying beside her, right next to her parent's grave.

She had skipped school that day, when she'd smelled the suave fragrance of the African violet growing wonderfully in her backyard. It used to be her mother's favorite flower. And it had been enough to remind her how long she hadn't visited her parents.

In the tranquil silence, only surrounded by the faint and relaxing chirping of birds and blows of the gentle breeze, she felt like if all that had happened to her ever since she'd met Stefan was just a dream.

_Like Alice in Wonderland_ she thought, sarcastically .

And she was relieving everything that had happened since then, letting her mind wander in between the ajar doors that guarded symbolically her memories.

Right now, the atmosphere seemed so similar to the first day of school, almost two years before, when she was about to meet him again at the exit of the cemetery, when he'd been secretly following her every single move.

.

Elena abruptly opened her eyes.

She wouldn't have let nostalgia bring her down.

Closing delicately her journal, she greeted a whispered "Goodbye" to her parents and left the place in a comfortable silence.

Recalling what had been lost wouldn't help anything change. She'd have had to appreciate and think of what she had gotten, and had been gifted with, instead.

Walking slowly down the street, she furtively placed one hand down her slight belly bump, ironically realizing she was wearing the same red t-shirt of the very first day.

A faint smile appeared on her rosy lips, realizing how right and how perfectly, all the pieces were fitting in the puzzle.

"I love you already, little you " she murmured in a low,adoring tone.

.

Elena gazed around, making sure nobody was watching.

The last thing she wanted was for some people to start contorted rumors about her pregnancy.

People could be so mean.

It was Damon's baby that she was carrying inside her. For absurd that it sounded, the witches had made it possible.

_Balance_ was what the world needed. Right?

Elena's life had been the exact opposite of that, ever since Stefan had stepped into her life. Ever since she was born.

She hadn't chosen to be the doppelgånger. Because yet she was only human, after all.

And After too long, after so much sufferance, the spirits of hundreds of dead witches, along with Bonnie and Esther, had gotten that figured out.

And her wish – the one to love Damon entirely, in every way possible- had come true.

.

Too drawn in her own, long train of thoughts, she almost didn't notice she was standing on her porch's home, keys in hand.

She shook her head, realizing how distraught she was being lately.

.

Once in the hallway, the usual silence welcomed her.

She looked around as it had become a good habit, before completely stepping safely inside.

"Boo!" someone called from behind.

In a startle, she suddenly turned and spotted Katherine laying casually on the small desk next to the front door, a smirk pleasantly traced on her lips.

"Are you insane?" Elena whispered, trying to catch her breath.

Katherine raised one eyebrow, interested. "Weren't you the one who sensed vampire's present, better than a witch?"

Elena shook her head, headed to the kitchen, ignoring the fact she was being followed.

"I thought that, too" she admitted in a murmur, giving her back to her twin, while pouring some fresh water in a glass, in a lame attempt to hide her cringed expression and calm down the beat of her racing heart.

A brief pause of silence, then Katherine finally talked.

"Are you okay?"

.

Elena didn't answer.

The eloquent hush got heavier and heavier, until the vampire placed one of her tiny, yet strong hand on the girl's shoulder.

Elena turned hesitantly, well aware of the look on her older doppelgånger's face.

"What's going on?" Katherine asked, serious.

.

Elena took one second to inhale some fresh air, before spitting out a bitter "I don't know."

The vampire raised one defined eyebrow, the perfectly applied make up gleaming in the sunlight that filtered through the curtains of the kitchen's windows.

"It may be just my imagination, or the fact that I'm metabolizing the whole succession of events that happened lately." The human girl explained, in confusion, trying to come up with a reasonable excuse to even give her own self.

"And what would that mean?" Katherine pushed her to continue her assumptions, though her complex mind already miles away, in attempt to elaborate some good and believable explanation .

"That I'm feeling more and more tired" Elena admitted, shifting her weight uncomfortably on her feet. "I don't want it to be anything major. So I'll talk to Bonnie, and hear what she says about the whole thing."

Katherine nodded, proudly aware her doppelgånger was just as smart as she was.

"Let's just.." Elena recalled the vampire's attention back, raising her pointer finger in her direction. "Let's just not tell Damon."

Katherine shook her head, a sarcastic grin appeared smug on her lips.

"What, now we're keeping things from him?" she asked, amused. "The evil Petrovas bound together against the innocent Salvatores.. Quite epic" she continued, dramatically letting her eyes wander in the air.

" Break it off" Elena muttered, headed to the couch.

"…Said the one who in the first place used to criticize my selfish and bitchy plans" Katherine added, following her twin, giggling.

Elena pouted, grabbing a tight hold of a huge cushion and sitting down in a fetal position.

"You okay?Seriously?" the vampire's expression readily switched into a serious one, it almost would have seemed she were faking it, if someone hadn't known her really well, just like Elena did.

She hummed a yes. But she wasn't even sure herself if it was all okay.

.

"What's going on here?"

Damon's voice had the two girls taken aback, both too focused on the conversation for even Katherine to hear him coming.

Or maybe, the eldest doppelgånger, just knew best than the eighteen year old girl, to keep anything regarding the baby from the father.

"Nothing" guilt quickly faded from Katherine's features, once she gazed Elena's feisty and argumentative look.

"I'm just a bit tired." She let out, flatly. "I'm gonna invite Bonnie over and have lunch delivered."

Katherine beckoned to leave.

"No" Elena replied, gaining a Damon's crooked stare. "You can stay" she pleased her twin.

What was not any of the present's imagination appeared to be a faint, yet complacent smile enlightening Katherine's face .

.

Damon sat next to Elena, removing the pillow from her arms and replacing it with his strong hold of her tiny body in his chest.

She let herself cradle in the safety of what was her home, taking the overwhelming essence that was his fragrance.

"You know.." she began,casually "I think Jeremy's been on his own too much lately."

Damon listened, carefully.

"Why don't you and Stefan take him somewhere, spend a guy night together.."

".. Meet new chicks" Katherine interrupted, amused.

Elena shook her head in disbelief .

"That's supposed to be a pleasant and nice way to tell me to scram?" Damon raised his eyebrow, a shadow of his smirk well hidden under his composure that faked disappointment.

Elena felt her cheeks heat up, and looked away, afraid to lose herself in his blue ocean and reveal the truth.

.

"Fine" she heard him say, while releasing a soft whisper .

Gazing tenderly in his blue eyes, she leaned in, and closed her brown depths.

Their lips met, perfectly matching the one with the softness of the other. Their breaths became one, as her heart beat for his dead one, too .

"You don't get to skip school, anymore, though, Miss." Damon interrupted the kiss, the thread in his voice only made her smile.

"Alright" she told back, allowing him at least to believe what she'd said was true.

.

.

* * *

.

.

"What I'm trying to tell you is that it's not fine to feel like this when you're not even one month pregnant." Katherine claimed exasperated, raising dramatically her hands to the air.

Bonnie stood silent and detached, uncomfortably sat on the floor next to Elena's bedroom desk .

"There's no need to heat up" Elena said, defensively .

"I've never been a huge fan of the joo-joo stuff." The vampire announced, placing her hands on her sculpted hips. "What guarantee do we have the whole spell has worked?"

That was enough for the girl's burst out to take place. "What?" Elena asked, in a bitter unbelief.

How could Katherine even hesitate on the life she was carrying inside of her?

"Are you doubting the baby is not real?" she continued, shaking imperceptibly her head at the thought of her doppelganger's conclusion. "Do you think I'm insane?"

Elena's voice rose of some octaves ,anger flowing swiftly through her veins.

"Enough" Bonnie commanded , serious. Her tone was sufficiently authoritarian to keep both of the girls quiet.

Her dark eyes inspected the two pair mirrored ones of the doppelgangers, until the witch sensed the tension slowly wearing off.

"My baby is real" Elena whispered, her brown depths burning in Katherine's. "You have to believe me."

.

The phone suddenly rang, breaking the awkward tension that was beginning to rush again between the three.

"It's Damon" Elena stated, checking the number on the display . "I'll be right back" she shot in warning at Katherine, to then soon leave the room .

.

"Why is she getting weak?" the vampire questioned, in a cold tone that reminded so much of when –back in a short amount of time- she used to be the badass plotter that would create huge killing master plans .

Bonnie reflected for some seconds.

"It must be something that has to do with the time travelling." She began then, fully concentrated on the topic.

"I thought we all had agreed that it had gone smoothly, hadn't we?" Katherine teased, unwillingly excluding one option from the list.

Bonnie's eyes burnt into the vampire's.

"It has." She admitted, nodding. "That's why I can't get what's wrong. "

There was a brief pause, where the witch began to flip the pages of her grimoire , in an expert mode .

.

"If the spell hadn't worked, Elena wouldn't be pregnant by now." She announced, stopping for one second. "She hasn't even messed up with the succession of events. Which resulted, as written in here " – she pointed at some ancient writings – "The one and only _side effect_."

Katherine inspected the pages, raising one eyebrow.

"What if Emily hadn't gotten it right? What if she forgot something?" she asked, trying to give herself an answer in the meanwhile.

"What do you mean? This spell has passed down through the Bennett family for centuries. My ancestors would have noticed.."

The malicious gaze of the vampire met the determined one of the witch.

"Had they ever met the doppelgånger?"


End file.
